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It should be noted, however, that while many languages get by without explicitly marking definiteness, there are other linguistic techniques that can provide si

• vorg 11y ago
  I would say that the definiteness use of "the", perhaps alone among English words, doesn't even have a part of speech because it's related to the thematic structure of English, whereas parts of speech are defined in the grammatical structure of languages. So "a" and "the" are different animals in a way, and perhaps shouldn't even be taught together.
  • thaumasiotes 11y ago
    "A" and "the" are most certainly the same part of speech. There are many other words in the same category: many every my some his this Note that "my", "his", and "this" also mark definiteness on the noun phrase.
    • vorg 11y ago
      > "A" and "the" are most certainly the same part of speech. I disagree... > There are many other words in the same category: All these example words add semantic meaning to the noun phrase, and a primary sub-category for their use is whether the noun is countable (e.g. cat) or uncountable (e.g. salt): cats VS salt a cat/any cat, some cats, all cats/every cat VS some salt, all salt no cats, one cat, two cats, ... VS no salt, some salt few cats, many cats VS little salt, much salt my cat/s, our cat/s, your cat/s VS my salt, our salt, your salt his cat/s, her cat/s, its cat/s, their cat/s VS his salt, her salt, its salt, their salt this cat, that cat, these cats, those cats VS this salt, that salt The article "a" is only used with countable nouns (unless an uncountable is being used as a countable with meaning "a type of") and so fits into this sub-categorization. > Note that "my", "his", and "this" also mark definiteness on the noun phrase. In those cases the demonstrative is adding semantic information to the noun, whether possession ("my", "his") or location ("this"). If we split "A cat sitting on the rug meows." into the 2 sentences "A cat is sitting on the rug. The cat meows.", the only function of the "the" in the second sentence is to provide a cohesive link to something in the first sentence. Similarly, "Some salt stored in the shaker spills." can be split into "Some salt is stored in the shaker. The salt spills." This makes "the" solely a cohesive device, independent of the semantics and in the domain of thematics. So "a" and "the" are used orthogonally, each in different ways of analyzing an utterance.
      • thaumasiotes 11y ago
        "Some" is a perfect counterpart to "the", expressing only indefiniteness (regardless of noun number) where "the" expresses only definiteness: There's some guy out on the sidewalk erasing the chalk art. It's more common to use "a" there, but not required. Here are two English sentences in which a word appears solely to satisfy English syntactic requirements: Your house is big. It's raining outside. While interesting, those sentences aren't arguments that "is" is not a verb, or that "it" is not a noun.
        • vorg 11y ago
          > Here are two English sentences in which a word appears solely to satisfy English syntactic requirements Not sure how that relates to what I'm saying about "the". A minor note: the "is" in "Your house is big" is non-contractable, whereas in "It's raining outside" the "is" contracts, so they're really 2 different words.
          • thaumasiotes 11y ago
            The "is" in "your house is big" is not non-contractable, as can be seen here: It's big. What are you saying about "the"? There are lots of words with essentially no (in the case of "it's raining", literally no) semantic content; they belong to various parts of speech just the same. EDIT: I want to also bring two more examples of "the" in English to your attention. The first was recently produced by me: > It's a famous result that the people who believe premarital sex is wrong account for fairly little of the premarital sex. "The premarital sex" has basically the same semantics as "all premarital sex", and the use of "the" is required for that effect. Here's the second: > In considering India it must always be borne in mind that here was the original seat of the Aryan civilization and that, though the Hindoo is as dark as many of the American negroes, he is of Aryan stock like ourselves. ( http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27233/27233-h/27233-h.htm http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27233/27233-h/27233-h.htm ) Again, "the Hindoo" uses a "the" that cannot be interpreted anaphorically, and the noun phrase is in fact not linked to anything prior. It appears in the context already marked for definiteness.
• escherplex 11y ago
  Good observations. It's also interesting to look back 2K years at the kingpin Eurasian languages for evidence of definite/indefinite articles. From right to left, ancient Chinese (probably) lacked the qualifier but was exposed to its existence via the silk road (which used the lingua franca Aramaic which had them) and also through exposure to the Greek Buddhist colonies in North India (ancient Greek had a definite article). Same holds for Sanskrit in ancient India, which lacks any definite article. Same for old Latin. And Greece was subordinate to Rome, which only tolerated Greek as a language of the intelligentsia. Curious how an appendage in ancient secondary tongues became so mainstream in so many dominant contemporary languages.
  • cafard 11y ago
    In Homeric Greek, the definite article is more of a demonstrative adjective, isn't it, more "that man" rather than "the man"? And Greek hung on as the language of administration in the eastern part of the empire.
    • escherplex 11y ago
      True. The Wikipedia page on 'Article (grammar)' brings up the same points. Meanwhile, back in Greece,the European Union, and the OXIclean vote (a stain remover product in the US :) ...